Sir David, I Feel Your Pain

A Naturalist in a World of Wounds

His nature documentary narrations can seem overly dramatic and breathy at times, but I have no doubt, Sir David Attenborough's commitment to and love of the living world are genuine over a long and dedicated life.

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet Review: A Plea to the Future | IndieWire

So do watch (free on Netflix) A Life On Our Planet-- a production that might be, at 94, his last such contribution to natural and cultural history. You'll sense his pain at what he's witnessed over an even longer span of decades than I--a biology watcher all my life, but especially since the first Earth Day when I was about to enter an academic focus on the "science of life." Biologists my age who have paid attention live in a world of wounds.

As Aldo Leopold, who died less than two weeks after I was born, has it right:

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.”

Sir David has witnessed the Biosphere collapse before his eyes. This recent video is his testimony and statement to the world. But that is not his last act. Rather than giving up, even in his final years, he and Prince William are seeding the future with the offer of a million dollars over the next ten years to 50 eco-entreprenuers.

Prince William and Sir David Attenborough join forces on 'Earthshot' prize - BBC News

The winner of each EarthShot prize, whose technological, political, social or behavioral "solution" to reverse global collapse will not put the money in their personal bank account.

Rather, that money will seed the implementation of their proposed "solution" to one particular failure that we can correct.

This has a double benefit: it can create actionable solutions that can turn the ship before it hits the rocks; and it gives our youth a degree of hope that can prevent them from hitting the iceberg of hopelessness in the face of what seems otherwise to be certain global catastrophe in their lifetimes if we don't unite across the planet to find and implement solutions.

Maybe the "Nobel Prize for environmentalism" and the EarthShot big push to make a difference will be the turning point we look forward with hope to see, and our grandchildren will look back with gratitude for this bold project to turn the tide while there is still time.